No Longer the World's Slowest Blog

Monday, June 26, 2006

Going to the Regatta Saturday? Be In a Movie!

Ever wanted to be in a movie?

You have your chance this Saturday, July 1. The finale piece to Carl Kurlander's documentary A Tale of Two Cities will be shot at the Point at 5:00pm. We're looking for many, many Pittsburghers to take part in singing the classic song "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," against the backdrop of the downtown Pittsburgh skyline. The singing will be led by none other than Mr. McFeely (David Newell) of Misterogers' Neighborhood. Many local celebrities will also take part in this performance (but if I told you who was coming, it wouldn't be a surprise).

If you'd like to take part, go to the area of Point State Park between the performance stage and the fountain after 4:30pm. The singing will start by 5pm.

If it rains Saturday afternoon, the filming will take place Monday afternoon, same location, at 5pm.

For more information on this event, visit our Website.

Monday, June 19, 2006

A Bad Blogger Trend - Syndication Without Credit

As I've been saying for years, I like to be linked to. Whenever anyone's written to me and asked me if they can link to something I've put online, I don't hesitate to say, "Of course. This is the Web - you can link to anything you'd like."

Recently, though, I've been finding some of my blog entries copied without any attribution for the sole purpose of third parties getting a few pennies from Google or other advertisers. This is just another form of plagarism, and I think it's very unfair. So I'll be annoyingly beginning all future blog entries with a separate copyright notice and a link back to my site.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Who Is Your IMDB Namesake? (Meme Alert!!)

I love the Internet Movie Database. It's a wonderful collection of data (mostly accurate even). Before there was a Wikipedia, there was IMDB, a database that was created by movie fans, for movie fans.

I'm not sure how many names of actors and crew are in the database. Probably over 100,000. So I was curious - do I have a namesake in IMDB?

Well, first I should observe that I am very close to a relatively-well-known IMDB namesake - Leslie Mann. We named our daughter "Leslie" when she was born in 1980 as we liked the name, my name is Scottish and we liked the idea of giving our child a name that reflected part of her varied cultural background. In 1996, when our Leslie was 16, we first heard of Leslie Mann, the actress.

Leslie Susan Mann, Geek	Leslie Mann, Actress

Leslie Mann, the actress, is about eight years older than our Leslie, and has mostly played comic roles. In the mid-'90s our Leslie's favorite actor was Jim Carrey. Leslie Mann's first major role was in The Cable Guy, with Jim Carrey as the lead. Leslie Mann the actress was also in 40 Year Old Virgin last year.

I then looked my name up in IMDB and found a match! There is/was an actress named Laurie Mann (at least one of them) who was on a TV show in the '50s and did a cartoon voice on Scooby Doo in the '70s. IMDB doesn't have a photo of her, and I couldn't find one online either.

My husband Jim Mann has at least three namesakes in IMDB (more if you include the many hits to James Mann). Though Jim has edited several books, he is not the "Jim Mann" who appeared on BookNotes in 1990.

So, do you have any IMDB namesakes?

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Fan Letter to Arlen Specter

Live in Pennsylvania? Send Arlen a letter! I did:

Dear Senator Specter:

Thank-you so much for again demonstrating that some Republicans are capable of independent thought.

I really appreciate your vote against the "gay marriage amendment."

I also appreciate that you are representing the people and the Constitution against the current administration over issues around domestic spying.

At least I can be proud of one of my Senators!

SIncerely,

Laurie D. T. Mann

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Thanks to the Pittsburgh on Broadway Series for Listening!!!

Last December, I bitched mightily about not being able to buy Wicked tickets the day they went onsale. Most of the tickets had been picked up by scalpers and resold at 2X to 4X their face value. I was pissed. I did get to see Wicked by buying an available ticket at the last minute. It was a great show, and I'm glad I could go. I do feel sorry for the folks who wound up paying so much more for those tickets.

Well, someone at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust seems to have been listening. They sent around an E-mail to anyone whose E-mail address they had and offered to let us buy Spamalot tickets before they went onsale to the general public. As a result, I just paid face value for three tickets. Thanks!

6/8/06 Update- I'd sent a note to Chris Rawson at the Post-Gazette about this, and the letter was published today (second one down).

Ann Coulter - Sick Joke

I don't listen to Ann Coulter. The few times I've read words she's reported to have said indicate she doesn't have an original thought.

So she's just written a book called "Godless - The Church of Liberalism." And she shows up on the Today Show, at 7:15 in the morning, dressed like a hooker. She was wearing the sort of sleeveless, little black dress you sometimes see the working girls wear.

What point was she trying to make? If she was trying to make a serious point, shouldn't she pay a little more attention to what she wears? I should add that, like when I see Rick Santorum, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Ralph Reed and William Bennett on TV, I press the "mute" button as soon as Ann Coulter appears. It's still something like a free country and I'd rather not listen to the dittoheads.

The notion that liberalism is some sort of dogmatic religion is a joke. I know many liberals who believe in God. However, liberals tend to leave religious dogma as politics to the Republicans. Most of us liberals prefer to do our thinking for ourselves. The fact that the Republicans can say "gay marriage" and "immigration reform" and expect their "base" to respond like Pavlov's dogs indicates how incapable of independent thought so many Republicans are. Like Ann Coulter.

6/7/06 - turned out Ann was even more out-of-touch with reality than usual, and used her book to bash - women widowed by the 9/11 terrorist attack. I'm glad my mute button was working yesterday morning.

Friday, May 26, 2006

When You Finally Get Your Dream House...sigh

I've adored this house from the minute I saw it nearly three months ago.

I'd been looking for a new house for a while - we have a large book collection and simply needed a bigger house. While I spent about two months looking at houses, Jim spent about two days looking at houses since this home fit the bill (well, once I made changes that reflected the way we'd use the house).

I brought Jim out to look at this house, and he agreed. So we put a downpayment on it after sleeping on it for two nights.

The move has been extremely stressful. We'd lived in our Mt. Lebanon house for nearly 13 years, which was longer than any of us had ever lived anywhere. I didn't get us completely packed and completely moved out as I'd hoped to. Even now (over two weeks after the move) I'm still doing some clean-up to the old house. Our real estate agent recommended ripping out some rugs, and I'm doing that now.

However...

The new house is just great for us. So far, so good.

The Mt. Lebanon house is officially for sale. If you're looking for an inexpensive home in Mount Lebanon that lets you walk to the high school, middle school, pool, library, some churches, 44U, 36A buslines and 42S trolley, this is the house for you. While you may find that the house needs cosmetics, the roof is brand new, the driveway is reasonably new and it's listed for $129,000. In short, if you want a Mt. Lebanon home at a reasonable price, ths may be the place for you.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Moving to the Country

Our move to a new house went well. The weather was just perfect; maybe a little warm on the second day, but not too bad.

I was tired and didn't get as much packing/cleaning done as I'd hoped. But the moving crew (Allegheny Valley Transfer - Allied Van Lines) took everything in stride. There was one problem on their side - they didn't bring a big enough truck. So they brought in another truck during the afternoon.

Two Trucks...

Jim cleaned up the former library.

The Library

We left one last load of trash on the curb.

Good-bye to All That

The movers found the new place the next morning.

Move-in

Unpacking and set-up continues. I got the kitchen set-up yesterday while Jim focused on his office. Today, I have to return to the old house to pick up some things I'd left behind and do some cleaning.

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Getting Ready for the Big Move

We've been in our current, too-small (ahh..."very cozy" house in marketing-speak) for nearly 13 years. So it's gone from being too small to being way-too-small over the years.

So now we're moving into a house out in the country with over 2X the space.

I've spent almost three full days over the last week at the new house, waiting for deliveries and moving in some of the small stuff. We've gotten some new furniture and a new washing machine without too much grief (except for Jim's new desk from Office Max...**grrrr**). I haven't really been able to write lately; I've been admittedly obsessive about the new house. I've always wanted a new house. About my only regret about the house is that it is a little further in the country than I would have liked. But it is so nice and so quiet...I'm looking forward to all that quiet!

Friday, April 21, 2006

Can We Trust Government "Science?"

The FDA reports that marijuana has no benefit for medical use.

Given that the FDA is under the thumb of Republicans, who have no respect for science, I don't believe what the FDA says. I've known too many sick people who report improvements in appetite and nausea when they use pot. Even very conservative people (like my own mother) think medical marijuana is OK.

Since our government ignores facts when they interfere with its agenda, I do not believe this FDA announcement. The same FDA won't permit "Plan B" to be sold without a prescription because the government claims Plan B is abortion. The same FDA won't promote use of the anti-cervical cancer vaccine for fear that it might encourage young women to be promiscuous. The same government doesn't believe that human activity influences global warming, and didn't believe (until really recently) that energy conservation was a good idea.

Don't get me wrong - personally, I don't use marijuana. I found out over 30 years ago that pot triggers asthma and gives me a sore throat. But I do think pot should be legal for home use. It shouldn't be anyone's business. Pot shold be regulated and taxed the way that alcohol is.

I look forward to having a reality-based government someday. We clearly don't have one now.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

We Are Here...

Somewhere around 1960, my parents bought me a pine dresser. It lasted through my childhood. At one point, I painted it blue. Eventually, when Jim, Leslie and I moved Massachusetts, I retrieved the dresser from my parents and gave it to Leslie.

Since it was a pine dresser, it really wasn't meant to last for 45 years. It's been falling apart for a few years. So, since we're moving, Jim and I are getting new dressers, and I'm giving my current dresser (which I think had been Jim's grandmother's) to Leslie.

Before I put the pine dresser out for the garbage collectors, I noticed we'd both signed the same drawer:

autographs

Friday, April 07, 2006

The Birthdate Meme and the States Visited Meme

Not clear where this came from, but:

Go to Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/). Type in your birth date (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important birthdays and one interesting death. Post this in your journal.

My birthdate is February 2, aka Groundhog Day.

Interesting Events

1709 - Alexander Selkirk is rescued from shipwreck on a desert island, inspiring the book Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
1933 - Adolf Hitler dissolves the German Parliament.
1990 - Apartheid: In South Africa President F.W. de Klerk allows the African National Congress to legally function again and promises to set Nelson Mandela free.

Interesting Birthdays

1882 - James Joyce, Irish author (d. 1941)
1949 - Brent Spiner, American actor

Interesting Deaths

1461 - Owen Tudor, Welsh founder of the Tudor dynasty of England

In addition to Dead People Server, I've been tracking a list of people born in 1957.

States Visited Meme

A new hack from Google, apparently.

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

The Current Immigration Problems...

Most of my family has been in the United States for a very long time. My ancestors were mostly English and Scottish. They started leaving the Old World for the new as early as 1642. I have no idea if they had the proper papers or not. I only know that they came and ran farms, small businesses, churches, and families all over New England.

I think the hysteria over illegal immigration is troublesome, because it focuses on the wrong problems. Yes, of course governments should be on the lookout for potential terrorists. But should they be focused on so much on economic refugees? I don't think so. Should we declare illegal immigrants and the folks that help them felons? Why? What ever happened to "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free?" What ever happened to "Love thy neighbor as thyself?"

People willing to come to this country to work should not be discouraged. And that's all the vast majority of the illeagal immgrants want.

But aren't they taking American jobs? Sometimes. But many people have reported that Americans generally aren't working in the fields. I've read blogs by Mexican-American writers who report never having seen "Anglos" working in the fields. Granted, these are low-paying, backbreaking jobs.

But if Americans aren't taking these jobs...why can't immigrants?

I love going to areas where I don't always hear English. I've been delighted to be one of the only non-Asians at a dim sum restaurant in San Francisco. I don't mind having to work a little harder to speak slowly to a person who isn't a native English speaker. This tends to freak many Americans out.

The bottom line is the immigration debate brings out racism in a very vocal group of Americans.

As much as President Bush has been so wrong so often in his public career, he's been about the most rational public voice on the immigration debate. And thank goodness for the common sense displayed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on this issue.

It would be nice if the more Americans could show as much common sense.

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Finally Made it Into the "We Are Not Afraid" Gallery

I love the Brits.

Only in England could a wonderful site like We Are Not Afraid bloom into a Web phenomenon by the middle of July of last year. It was a response to the temptation to give into despair after the subway bombings last July. I loved the site and sent them a "We Are Not Afraid" photo of my own, which is now linked to this page (I'm in the upper right hand corner).

After 9/11, I was dismayed by the "let's let the terrorists terrify us" attitude that the American people adopted after the attacks. I wrote an essay in the fall of 2001, saying why I thought this attitude was such a serious mistake.

*Sigh*

Today, in filling out the paperwork for the mortgage on our new house, one of the forms was a "Patriot Act" form, saying the government the government has the right to review applications for loans for possible money laundering activities...
Yes, of course we completed the form, but still!

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

I Really, Really Finished My Novel Today

Which is ironic to say the least.

Exactly one year ago today, I wrote in this blog:

The "tinkering" I was talking about was on a novel I now call IRL. I got the idea for it about five years ago when I was back in college and was lucky enough to have Chuck Kinder as my writing instructor that semester. It started off as a little scene, and, a little at a time, became a 17,000 word pieces-of-a-few-chapters-plus-outline.

When I was laid off about a year ago, I thought long and hard about working on this some more. After a few weeks, I was writing a little. In April and May, around some contracts, I wrote quite a bit. Once the summer hit, I was working more on Interaction (last year's Worldcon; a common volunteer job for the un/underemployed).

Then, I had a bad combination of illness, false finishes, writers' block, and contract jobs (usually for pay,which was better than nothing). I really didn't write much of it between late July and late January, though I did fall into tinkering with it some. At one point, I said I was done, but I was wrong.

In early February, I reexamined the beginning and the ending. I threw out the first five thousand words, and changed the ending. After writing seven thousand words of a new ending, I threw that one out too.

And then, I lost most of last week in house hunting/financial things/other stuff around buying a new house.

I knew I had to finish this week because I have to start packing!

With this deadline in mind, I've written very steadily lately and completely redid the ending.

I don't know if this book will ever sell or not. It may be, like many first novels, something that I'll look back on as a learning experience. Or maybe it'll sell a few copies. Who knows. I only know I have a letter to an agent that hasn't been bounced back to me (yet).

And I finished my novel! Maybe not in time for "Write Your Novel" month, but what-the-hell...

Monday, March 13, 2006

The Book Inventory...

We plan to have professional movers handle most of our move. We're getting old, our friends are getting old, et.c. So, starting this week, I have companies coming out to give us an estimate.

We collect books. I estimate we have somewhere around 15,000 books and another 2,000 magazines. We haven't done a real inventory in a while, but I have spent part of the last few days inventorying the bookcases.

I found we have 69 bookcases, and about another 10 random book shelves over doors and the like (book collectors understand the need to use as much space as possible!). To complicate this slightly, we also have one large built-in bookcase and one small built-in one, so we have to account for the stuff in them, and remember to buy/build that many more bookcases when we move. We will probably be getting rid of some of the books at an upcoming yard sale, but I don't expect we'll get rid of all that many.

We have at least 890 shelf feet of books and magazines.

But wait, there's more.

Jim has already packed about 30 boxes of books, magazines and misc. papers. So that means, you guessed it, building/buying even more bookscases so we can put everything out again.

Jim builds nice, study bookcases, and we plan to build a few between the time we close on the house and the time we move in a few days later. The house has modern heating and cooling, so while we won't have to worry about radiators, we will have to worry about floor vents and having many more electical outlets than we're used to.

But, it will be nice to be in a house big enough to display the collection without everything being so cluttered.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

We Bought a New House!

Tonight, we bought our brand new house in the country. It's a neat, large house and it has woods. It's out past the airport, but it's only a half hour to downtown Pittsburgh.

We definitely will not be at Codclave.

We'll probably be at Midwestcon, but maybe just for Saturday night.

We'll be at Confluence, but we might have to commute.

We expect to be at LAcon, but will probably skip the post-con trip to wine country.

We'll be closing in just over six weeks and will probably move sometime in May.

If anyone's looking for an inexpensive, conveniently-located home in Mount Lebanon, drop me a line.

I Really HATE to be Sold to...

Jim and I are considering buying a new house (details when we know something for sure). The problem with buying a new house (or anything that's at all expensive) is dealing with "sales representatives."

Now, most of the real estate agents/builder's reps I've spoken to over the last couple of months have been pretty nice. Until recently, I've always stressed that we're "just looking." We didn't get really serious until recently. So far, I have no real complaints.

However, I can say without a doubt that when we do go to get a mortgage it will not be from one particular mortgage company. I'd rather not mention names, in case it turns out this guy is something of a loose cannon. But we put our potential mortgage information in through LendingTree.com. While the builder we're likely to buy a house from has a mortgage plan, we feel it's in our best interest to comparison shop (and, so far, the builder's plan is coming in cheapest anyway).

So we got a bunch of offers from Lending Tree. We even had one guy call, so I called him back as the rate he quoted was comparable to our builder. We talked for about five minutes. I stressed we were only looking for a 15 or 20 year mortgage, and we wanted the loweest rate we could qualify for.

And then he said something like, "There's really no problem with paying more interest..."

And then I said, "If that's the way you feel, then we really can't work together," and I hung up.

Now, granted, that's kind of abrupt and rude on my part, and I don't apologize for that at all. I said what I wanted - I wanted to pay as little interest as I could. I was very specific. We have a good credit rating and we'll be making a good-sized downpayment. We don't need to play the "Gee, what if I don't qualify?" game. I know we will qualify.

So the guy called back, and I said, specfically, "Do Not Call Back." And then I hung up.

The bottom line is, you cannot sell me. If you try to sell me, you will lose me as a potential customer.

And this is the bad thing about buying a piece of property. I know the selling thing will only be worse in the future. At least once we do commit ourselves to a piece of property, I can say, "We have no money to buy anything."

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Oscar and Life Notes

I haven't been writing much online lately for two important reasons:

* I'm really, really close to finishing my novel
* Jim and I have seriously looking for a new house

So these two priorities are taking over everything else for the time being. But I promise I will be ready for next weekend's Confluence Brainstorming at the PARSEC meeting.

My other typical priority for this time of year is to write a little essay on the Oscars and make predictions. I will watch the Oscars tonight, and here are my predictions for the evening:

Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Actress: Reese Witherspoon
Supporting Actor: George Clooney (but don't count Jake Gyllenhaal out!)
Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz
Animated Feature: Corpse Bride
Art Direction: King Kong
Cinemetography: New World
Costume Design: Memoirs of a Geisha
Directing: Ang Lee
Documentary Feature: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Documentary Short: The Mushroom Club
Film Editing: Constant Gardener
Foreign Language: Joyeux Noël
Make-up: Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Music: Memoirs of a Geisha
Song: Traveling' Through
Picture: Good Night and Good Luck
Short Film Animated: Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello
Short Film Live Action: The Six Shooter
Sound Editing: War of the Worlds
Sound Mixing: King Kong
Visual Effects: King Kong
Adapted Screenplay: (this may be the hardest category...) Brokeback Mountain
Original Screenplay: Good Night and Gook Luck

While movies, on the whole, weren't so hot last year, some were, as usual, exceptional. Brokeback Mountain was such a mornful, spare movie, and Jake Gyllenhaal's superb performance was generally ignored (except by the BAFTAs). History of Violence was a real grabber, and given that Cronenberg, Mortensen and Bello were ignored for their excellent work, the movie could wind up with best Adapted Screenplay. But I do think George Clooney will win at least one Oscar tonight, and if he looses Supporting Actor, he'll probably take Original Screenplay.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Pittsburgh Girly Blogger Lunch

Girlyblogger Lunch Sign

Christina recently called for another in an erratic series of Girly Blogger Lunches. I noted that the day she planned it for was Mardi Gras. And thus, a theme was born. Anne and I both brought beads, and we were generally a little sillier than usual.

Girlyblogger Lunch Attendees: Vanessa, me, Susie, Christina, Anne

Bloggers represented included Vanessa, me, Susie, Christina, and Anne, and Cynthia via cell phone.

The blog lunch was fun!

The job I got back in January did not work out so I quit. My unemployment happened at a good time for an important reason. Within a week of being unemployed, I started writing again and am pretty close to finishing the novel. I first wrote a chapter that I've since gone back and dumped, but it at least got me writing again. I'm finally within about 15,000 words of finishing!